Green Bay Packers Appear to be Keeping Mason Crosby
By Paul Bretl
One potential cut candidate this offseason as the Green Bay Packers try to work their way under the salary cap is kicker Mason Crosby.
2022 is the final year of Crosby’s current deal, and he comes with a cap hit of $4.73 million. However, if he were cut, the Packers would save $2.39 million in cap space. Not a huge amount by any means, but this offseason, every little bit helps.
Not even Mason Crosby could escape the Green Bay Packers special teams woes last season.
Crosby is coming off his worst season since 2012. He would miss nine field goal attempts, and he particularly struggled from 40+ yards. Now, not all of those issues fall on Crosby as the field goal protection unit was abysmal at times, but he isn’t blameless either.
In addition to the missed field goals, at 37-years-old, it does look like Crosby has lost some power. As already mentioned, he specifically struggled on field goal attempts of 40 or more yards, but on kickoffs, he routinely failed to get the ball to the end zone, which was not helpful for one of the NFL’s worst kick coverage units.
According to PFF ($$), Crosby’s kickoff return rate of 55% was the fourth-most last season, and his 43 touchbacks were the seventh-fewest. Hopefully, we see the kick coverage unit improve in 2022, but giving the opponent fewer opportunities would help as well.
So given these issues, along with the cap savings, as mentioned, Crosby could be a possible cut candidate. However, according to Rob Demovsky, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Demovsky reports that Green Bay is keeping Crosby and they will not be altering his contract.
It appears the Packers are keeping kicker Mason Crosby. At this point, there's no change in his status or his contract, a source said. He's scheduled to make $3.4 million with a cap charge of $4.735M.
— Rob Demovsky (@RobDemovsky) March 15, 2022
While we just laid out some reasons why moving on from Crosby makes sense, for a Green Bay Packers team that is clearly all-in once again on winning a Super Bowl, cutting Crosby and relying on either JJ Molson or Dominik Eberle comes with obvious risks. Combined, the duo has five career extra-point attempts and three field goal attempts—all of which belong to Eberle.
Perhaps Green Bay is going to let training camp and the pre-season play out before making a decision. I can’t imagine they are going to carry three kickers on the roster if Crosby already has the job for 2022 locked up. If, after June 1st, the Packers decide to move on from Crosby, their cap savings will actually increase to $3.4 million, according to Over the Cap.
But for the time being, it sounds like Crosby won’t be a part of any cuts the Packers have to make to get under the salary cap, but I also don’t believe he’s an absolute lock to be on the Week 1 roster either. He’s likely the favorite, but I wouldn’t set it in stone just yet.